Cherry Difference
by Padfoot Reincarnated
Summary: When she tells him, he seems to take it as a personal affront. Hermione and Ginny fall in love with each other, and out of love with people they never wanted to hurt. Femmeslash.


**Title: Cherry Difference**

**Author: Padfoot Reincarnated**

**Rating: T/M for sexual situations (F/F)**

**A/N: It's been ages since I've written fic, and this was actually supposed to be a comedy. Instead, this came out. Hope you all enjoy this! Don't own Harry Potter, Ginny, Hermione, or any of them, standard disclaimer, etc.**

**

* * *

**

When she tells him, Ron seems to take it as a personal affront.

"Look, Hermione," he says. "I know she looks like me. But I don't understand." And it's pretty clear he doesn't, because if he understood, he would be meeting her eyes instead of staring over her shoulder. His hands wouldn't be shaking like that, and his freckles wouldn't be so painfully red against his white, white skin.

Hermione's heard comments about Ron and Ginny's similarity often enough to be able to ignore it; besides, until Ginny, there wasn't anyone in the world she loved more than Ron. She reaches across the table to grip his hand-it doesn't fit the way it used to; the fingers are too short, the palm is too soft. But when he tries to pull it away, she tightens her fingers around it.

"I wanted it to be you," she says. "I thought it was you."

He shrugs. "So did I."

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

She knows he's wrong, though-Ron and Ginny don't look anything alike. When Ginny holds her hand at dinner it's lighter and thinner. Ginny's smile is shyer; she bites her cherry lips and blushes and Hermione flushes with her.

Ron doesn't have the same spattering of freckles spanning his shoulder bones, down his spine, between his thighs. His eyes didn't light up the way Ginny's do-startled, pleading, although their bodies are no longer new to each other-when Hermione slips her finger into the hot wet place at the center and curves it. He never shook the way Ginny does, didn't arch his back the way she does, so Hermione can lick and nip her way down from the two soft breasts.

When Ginny cries out and wraps her fingers in Hermione's hair, Hermione's not thinking about Ron at all.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

Harry doesn't believe her. Or at least, that's what Ginny takes his nervous laughter to mean.

"I'm serious," she says. "I'm in love with her."

That word-_love_-seems to change something in him, as if he's remembering all the times she whispered it in his ear, soft, probing, delicate. Now she's declaring it, and her voice doesn't tremble in the slightest, even if she's weaving her hands together under the table so he won't see them shaking.

He covers his face in his hands, and for a second she's terrified he's crying, but he just says, "Can we talk about this later? It's been a long day."

So maybe he doesn't understand, after all. But he looks up at her, with green eyes that she admired and worshipped and loved but never really knew, and she feels something tear in her chest. "You know I still love you," she says. "I never..."

But there's really nothing left to say. He smiles grimly and looks old. She wants nothing more but to run to him and throw her arms around his shoulders and kiss the ache from his neck and the grey from his hair-but she's done saving him.

She lets him leave before she apparates with an angry pop.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

She's said all there is to say to say to Harry, and there's a lifetime of things left to say to Hermione, but she can't bring herself to say any of them. Ginny twirls Hermione's curls around her thumb as Hermione lays with her head in Ginny's lap. Hermione's lips are pinched as she squints to read the book propped up on her stomach, and Ginny wants nothing more than to kiss them-so she does, because she can.

Hermione's book falls to the floor as she reaches up to loop her arm around Ginny's waist.

Hermione smiles with glistening lips and doesn't say that she's sorry that she hurt them, or that she wouldn't take it back (she couldn't have), or that she's ashamed of how happy she is right now. She sighs and buries her face in the warmth of Ginny's stomach, and reaches out to hold Ginny's hand.

It doesn't matter that she doesn't say it. Ginny knows anyway.

* * *

**Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!**


End file.
